Sexual harassment cases in top cos spike

While the rise in cases highlights a worrying trend, it also suggests increased awareness about sexual harassment and the availability of platforms to report complaints. “It would be a mistake to assume that sexual harassment cases did not occur before this, but earlier, one wasn’t even sure what constituted sexual harassment and what remedies were available to a victim," said Aparna Mittal, the founder of Samāna Centre for Gender, Policy and Law.

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Data compiled by Mint showed that 755 cases were registered in FY23 at 23 of the 30 Sensex companies that have released their annual reports. This set of 23 companies had reported 451 such cases in FY22. Even after the remaining seven companies release their annual reports, the total count will remain markedly higher than in FY22 when all Sensex companies together reported 475 cases (this excludes Nestlé India, which follows January to December cycle.)

IT firms and banks, which have large headcounts, typically register the largest number of sexual harassment cases. In FY23, the highest number of sexual harassment complaints were registered at Wipro Ltd (141), Infosys Ltd (78), Tech Mahindra Ltd (74), HDFC Bank Ltd (68), HCL Technologies Ltd (55), Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd (55), Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (49), State Bank of India (46), Tata Steel Ltd (38), and Axis Bank Ltd (34). All these firms saw an increase from the previous year.

“IT companies generally employ a larger workforce, and hence, the numbers are higher as a percentage, but it also indicates they have taken substantial steps to create employee awareness and create reporting avenues," Mittal said.

While sexual harassment cases spiked during two years of the pandemic when employees worked from home, the hybrid work system that followed has opened up a new struggle. “There is an increase in ghost accounts created to harass an employee. In some cases, it is a group of people coming together to leave inappropriate comments on social-media posts of a colleague," said Nirmala Menon, the founder of Interweave Consulting.

When companies adopted a virtual working mode, many had to be educated on online meeting protocols as harassment cases started getting reported. “While confidence that companies are taking up the cases is high, the hybrid workforce is seeing both online and in-person harassment in offices," added Menon.

While Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) guidelines mandate that a harassment case gets resolved within 90 days, firms typically take about a month. In FY23, the companies disposed of 612 cases compared with 434 in FY22; however, this could include complaints filed both in a given year and earlier as well.

Consultants say complex cases, which include multiple witnesses who may no longer be with the firm or cases where new evidence comes up, add to the delays. “The number of cases we are handling has doubled over the last year. There are reports of substance abuse in outbounds and team outings, in many of the harassment cases that were filed in the last year," said Kanti Joshi, the founder of consulting firm SASHA (Support Against Sexual Harassment). Joshi highlighted that most of the cases coming in are from ITES and IT firms, followed by the healthcare sector, while startups report the least number of them due to their small workforces.